My First Protest March

I made my way down into the huddled masses yesterday evening at 7:00 pm to join the Prop 8 protest march in West Hollywood. It was my first and an experience I am not soon to forget.

After a quick stop to see friends at Fiesta Cantina, my pal Essay and I began the 7 mile trek from San Vicente & Santa Monica to Hollywood & Highland and back! At first, I was a little disappointed with the whole thing. It seemed like some of the gays were just looking for an excuse to go drink early and some of the celebrities saw it as a photo opportunity. The chanting seemed a little strange to me too. We're in West Hollywood, land of all things fag-ulous! Why are we preaching to a choir?

My favorite moment was when I saw porn star Alessandro Del Toro, who seemed to have lost his shoes and was marching in the wrong direction. Keep marching, Alley!

But I understand, these are dark times and it's good to drink through them, all celebrities involved help a cause and regardless of where we're chanting at least it will be on the news for everyone to see that we're not going to stand for this. I get it, I get it.

Still... I kept thinking, if we're going to do this, can't we be loud in our own way? I mean, the chanting "What do we want? EQUAL RIGHTS! When do we want it? NOW!" certainly got the point across, but frankly, marching at night in front of a group of 15,000 people behind me with a poster in my hand, I wanted to start singing, "A new Argentina! The chains of the masses untied..." and began to imagine how amazing it would be (and dare I even say affective and beautiful?) had everyone joined in!

But then something really special happened that I'm very lucky to have been a part of.

Instead of continuing to march on the streets that had been blocked off for us, a group of a couple thousand that I happened to be in the middle of seemed to be turning around and suddenly going in a different direction. I told Essay I didn't understand why we were turning around and asked what was going on and why people were screaming to hurry!

He explained to me that it's not a protest if you're staying on a parade route. We were about to take over another street that wasn't prepared for us and that street turned out to be Sunset Blvd. where we literally ran out into the traffic and stopped it cold.

A good 50 cop cars pulled up and when they told us to move to the right, the more to the left we would move. If they tried to pull up in front of us to block us, we would go past them. They couldn't stop us and we were too close together for them to just start arresting random people. It was such an adrenaline rush, a high like none I've ever experienced except when acting and sometimes singing where you have a completely natural out of body experience. It made me realize the thing all of those highs have in common: Putting something -- be it the cause, the character, the song, the emotion, the story -- before yourself. I often lose touch with a lot of things that take me outside of myself and it was such a great reminder of how necessary those moments are in our lives where we don't care how we look or sound or what we're getting out of something. When you put your ego on the back burner and allow something else to take you over so completely... well, there's just no rush that comes close to it.

Not to mention it was the most exercise I've had in a year, mmkay? I'm sure that had something to do with my blood pumping as well! And how eye opening was that? That there are mornings I think I couldn't possibly find the werewithall to get on a treadmill, yet I managed to walk 7 miles! I'm clearly capable of more than I thought.

Once we reached Hollywood and Highland, we were given chalk by the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence and told that though we can't yet marry, in the meantime we were to write our own personal vows all over Hollywood Blvd.

I choose to write: "I VOW TO STOP HATE IN MY OWN BACKYARD!"

Because though there's a specific issue we're fighting for, we can never forget what we're fighting against and that is our mortal enemy: Hate. And as always, if you want to change the world, the first thing you do is change what's in the mirror. An act of war is an act of war. We can't all just say we're fighting against Hate and then when someone cuts us off in traffic, flip them the bird and scream, "You stupid fuck!" out the window or we're just as hypocritical as those hypocrites we are fighting against.

When going into war, it is best to have clean hands.

We Define America... Today!

I hope everyone had a great Memorial Day holiday...

It's a sad irony that the day after celebrating those who have fought vigilantly for this country, our government -- meant to protect us -- would invade our very bedrooms. Where we once seemed an intelligent nation, more and more we find other countries making us a laughing stock when it comes our own hypocrisy claiming the soil we stand upon represents that of freedom and equality.

United we stand, divided we fall. If we do not offer every person regardless of sex, race, sexuality, age... the same rights, the super power we know as America today will soon crumble around us.

But you can change this.

It has happened time and again throughout the history of this wonderful country, people's voices rising up to change our government's policies when they do not uphold the ideas of what America was founded upon.

Tonight at 7:00 pm, I will be protesting at 647 N. San Vicente Blvd. in West Hollywood.

For information on a protest nearest you, click here.

If nothing else, today I ask you all to look into the mirror and define the word America. What does it mean to you? If our government is not upholding the definition of the word, do something, anything, to change that. Every voice in the chorus counts.

As much as I love my job, I couldn't go forward working on updates about adult entertainment today before calling attention to this atrocity and asking you to join me in doing something about it. Thank you.

Night Moving and Name Dropping!

So you may have heard by now, beginning May 30th, my tons of fun with tons of porn stars weekly event "INDUSTRY" at Numbers Bar & Restaurant moves to Saturday nights -- and I've gotta tell you, I couldn't be happier with that decision. To be able to have my big night out on the town be on an actual weekend like a normal person where Sunday is my recovery day instead of Thursday? I can't wait! I looove hosting "INDUSTRY" more than I've loved doing any weekly event ever, but having it smack dab in the middle of the work week has not been easy for me.

To get myself on the new schedule, I was a good boy this past Wednesday. I had lots of fun with the porn stars and guests but just nursed a couple drinks throughout the 8 hours event -- which turned out to be not only our busiest event yet but Numbers busiest night in over three months! I will be on my best behavior again this week for our final Wednesday night as I leave early the next morning to Chicago for The Grabby Awards weekend. I'm so excited about Chicago! It's something I really look forward to every year, seeing Stacey and Mark, my local friends like Ben and Joe and sooo many of my JasonCurious.com subscribers are from Chicago it's ridiculous. Always fun hanging with them and the whole weekend for us porn peeps is like a big family reunion out of town. The best! The platinum and gold tickets are sold out for the show, but there's still plenty of seats left and you can get your tix at Grabbys.com.

Saturday night, one of my roomies threw an absinthe party here at The Mans! Always fun to visit with the green fairy! Speaking of fairies, I invited a few to the bash. It wasn't technically my party so I couldn't ask a bunch of friends over to crash his soiree (I was a guest in my own home! lol), but I did ask Chi Chi LaRue, Essay, Kabbalah Nick, Jason Ridge and Rob Romoni over for the afternoon and we all had an absolute blast!

On Sunday, I was planning on laying abed all day until Perez Hilton twittered me asking if Chi Chi and I would like to join him for drinks in the afternoon. So, I pulled myself together, jumped in the shower, went shopping for Grabby's outfits in Century City with Cheech and then met up with Perez at Fiesta Cantina. We have talked online, are fans of each other's sites and met each other many times throughout the years. We always say we should get together and never do, so it was nice to finally spend some time. He was pouring money into that jukebox and cranking out Gaga after Madonna after Madonna after Gaga! He loves his girls!

Chi Chi and I bolted a little bit later and headed to her C1R partner Rob Novinger's GOOOORGEOUS apartment in Hollywood. Wow! What a pad! We were joined by Novinger's pal Matt, Morgan Summers from Cybersocket, Holly Ruprecht from Cruiser Boys, Tim Valenti from Naked Sword, Jack Shamama from Gay Porn Blog and Karl from You Love Jack. I love little intimate house parties like this and I am so used to being the host everywhere that I can't tell you how good to felt to be with friends and not be the one running around taking care of everyone. I had the best time ever!

Got up this morning and worked for a good 8 hours before heading to Tender Greens for dinner in Weho. If you haven't eaten there yet, GET THERE FAST. Best meal I've had in years. Like Grandma's home cooking in Indiana. That good. Seriously. I was ordering desserts to go when I heard this southern drawl next to me. All of a sudden, poking his head out from behind the guy next to me is adorable little Leslie Jordan, most famous for his Beverly Leslie character on "Will & Grace" but I LOVE his character arc on "Boston Legal" just as much! He looks at the desserts and goes, "Oh now that's just sinful. You're not gonna eat that are you? You'll go straight to hell if you do! It's a sin!" Then ordered the same thing. The cutest thing ever. Love him.

And on the way home, spotted Farah Fawcett. Only in Los Angeles!

Don't forget to Twitter me! ;-) http://twitter.com/jasonsechrest

Spending Mother's Day with The Mother of All Things Porno!

"Beware! Our idols and demons will pursue us... until we learn to let them go."

So shouts famed Andy Warhol actor, Udo Kier in his native tongue, portraying a Warhol-esque director as those idols and demons become balloons metaphorically let go into the air as the video begins.

I first saw the music video for Madonna's "Deeper and Deeper" when I was 13 years old. I had just moved from Indiana to Florida and for a curious boy just beginning to go through the hormonal changes of puberty, there was no better artist to become obsessed with and no album moreso the object of the obsession than Erotica.

"Deeper and Deeper" was the first track and the first video that thorougly sucked me in. Hours went by when I would stare at my ceiling with the CD on repeat, listening to it over and over again thinking, "There is no other song that better describes how I feel inside." With lyrics like, "Daddy couldn't be all wrong and my momma made me learn this song," to describe how our parents and upbringing can determine the places we yearn for love and the ways we seek it out, it would be well over five years until I would find any other song that better defined where I was in my life.

There are homosexual undercurrents in the lyrics as well and it was around that time that I started really recognizing how attracted I was to guys. Madonna, my idol's, embracing and accepting of homosexuality helped me to feel more comfortable expressing it and even seeking out ways to experience it.

"Someone said that romance was dead but I believed it instead of remembering what my momma told me, let my father mold me, then you try to hold me, you remind me what they said. This feeling inside I can't explain but my love is alive and I'm never gonna hide it again."

I never hid it again.

Some songs change your life.

This one changed mine.

Little did I know that over 15 years later, I would be best friends with the drag queen featured prominently in that video, Chi Chi LaRue. She's very much a mother figure in this industry so I wanted to give a shout out to her on this holiday. She's become such an amazing light in my life that I don't know what I would do without over the past couple of years. I'm excited to be spending tonight with her.

But really, listening to this song... wow, it's so funny to me how the world finds ways for things to come full circle. I have this little picture in my head of some Ghost of Mother's Day Futures coming up to her and going, "See that nerdy little acne ridden boy in bed listening to this song? You and he are gonna barely go 10 minutes without talking to each other someday." And her looking at the ghost like it's out of it's mind and going, ".....Dooooooo-kay! Are you kidding? Great. Fantastic. What's next? Take me somewhere else!"

Tonight, I'm going to go let my body move to the music and go with the flow, letting go of idols and demons! I'll be at the club My House with Chi Chi LaRue DJ'ing from 9:00 pm on as the Mother of Porn helms the mother of all Mother's Day parties in Hollywood!

I hope to see all of my friends there in a scene that will look no doubt frighteningly similar to the one below. ;-)

Madonna - Deeper and Deeper
by foxysoul

Nearly A Week In The Life...

I had an amazing weekend! How was your's?

After grabbing some grub with Chi Chi at Fat Fish (best sushi in town, hands down!) on Friday night, I stayed in for the evening and watched "Bride Wars," which was pretty good but not a classic by any means. We also shopped some on Saturday (despertely needed new bed sheets at Bed, Bath & Beyond!) and then downed some seriously yummy frozen yogurt watching "Girls Will Be Girls" on Saturday, which I must say I liked immensely better than "Bride Wars." Hilarious!

On Sunday, I met up with an old friend of mine Brittany Andrews for a pool party at The Standard Hotel in downtown LA. Brittany used to be a monthly columnist for my JasonCurious.com site. (Before the blog movement where now there's no need to really give porn stars a "column" platform on my site. They can build their own!) She's since retired from adult entertainment and is currently going to film school. I went with Jonathan Chang, Joe Kenan, Essay, my roomie Nik, C1R exclusive Jeremy Bilding and yes, ...the marines! Which you can finally see photos of below, courtesy my friend Essay's iPhone. ;-)

Monday was a bit of a recovery day for me with the exception of a long ass phone conference with Numbers about "INDUSTRY" (some exciting changes happening there I'll tell you about soon), but I did see "Wolverine" with Cheech in Century City which I had absolutely zero interest in seeing, so I was pleasantly surprised at how much I enjoyed it! Great story, beautifully shot, hot men -- what more is there? Oh and Jamie Lee Curtis was there and talked to us outside after the movie about how much she loved it. How hot is that? Only in Hollywood!

I caught up on emails and phone calls and work all day yesterday, at my computer from 8 am - 9 pm until I could take no more.

Tonight, Dean Coxx headlines "INDUSTRY" at Numbers from 6 pm - 2 am, the marines return to join the 10 Nearly Naked Gay Porn Stars tonight in their undies as well and our list of celeb attendees tonight is really something! I think it's gonna be a fun night! I posted the list of boys working and peeps attending in my other blog, "Jason's News Desk" at http://jasoncurious.com/desk/ so you can check it out there and if you're in the West Hollywood area, swing by tonight. Gonna be a lot of fun!

Now, play spot the marines!